POINT OF VIEW / FACT vs OPINION
Lit Book, page 222 - 223
Name ____________________
Date ________ Period ______
Choose from these points of view: first person, third person omniscient, third person limited
1. From Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli
So he turned and started walking north on Hector, right down the middle of the street, right down the invisible
chalk line that divided East End from West End. Cars beeped at him, drivers hollered, but he never flinched.
The Cobras kept right along with him on their side of the street. So did a bunch of East Enders on their side.
One of them was Mars Bar. Both sides were calling for him to come over.
Point of view? _________________________________
Circle one: Fact or Opinion? – An invisible chalk line divided East End from West End.
2. From From the Mixed-Up files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, by E. L. Konigsburg
Claudia was furious . . . She refused to look at Jamie again and instead stared at the statue. The
sound of footsteps broke the silence and her concentration. Footsteps from the Italian Renaissance were
descending upon them! The guard was coming down the steps. There was just too much time before the
museum opened on Sundays. They should have been in hiding already. Here they were out in the open with
a light on!
Point of View? _________________________________
Circle one: Fact or Opinion? – The museum was closed on Sundays.
3. From The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pene du Bois
It is funny that my trip has ended by being such a fast trip around the world. I find myself referred to now as
one of the speediest travelers of all times. Speed wasn’t at all what I had in mind when I started out. On the
contrary, if all had gone the way I had hoped, I would still be happily floating around in my balloon, drifting
anywhere the wind cared to carry me – East, West, North, or South.
Point of View? _________________________________
Circle one: Fact or Opinion – He was one of the speediest travelers of all times.
4. From Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
One of the soldiers, the taller one, moved toward her. Annemarie recognized him as the one she and Ellen
always called, in whispers, “the Giraffe” because of his height and the long neck that extended from his stiff
collar. He and his partner were always on this corner.
He prodded the corner of her backpack with the stock of his rifle. Annemarie trembled. “What is in
here?” he asked loudly.
“Schoolbooks,” she answered truthfully.
Point of View? _________________________________
Circle one: Fact or Opinion? – One of the soldiers was as tall as a giraffe.
5. From Missing May by Cynthia Rylant
The day after May didn’t come to us, Ob didn’t get out of bed. He didn’t get me up either, and from a bad
dream I woke with a start, knowing things were wrong, knowing that I had missed something vitally important.
Among these, of course, was the school bus. It was Monday, and OB should have called me out of bed at
five-thirty, but he didn’t, and when I finally woke at seven o’clock, it was too late to set the day straight.
Point of View? _________________________________
Circle one: Fact or Opinion? – “...it was too late to set the day straight.”
6. From The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
He himself was a very old man with shaggy white hair which grew over most of his face as well as on his
head, and they liked him almost at once. But on the first evening when he came to meet them at the front
door he was so odd-looking that Lucy (who was the youngest) was a little afraid of him, and Edmund (who
was the next youngest) wanted to laugh and had to keep on pretending he was blowing his nose to hide it.
Point of View? _________________________________
Circle one: Fact or Opinion? – “. . . he was so odd-looking.”
7. From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
For one whole semester the streetcars and I shimmied up and scooted down the sheer hills of San Francisco.
I lost some of my need for the Black ghetto’s shielding-sponge quality, as I clanged and cleared my way down
Market Street, with its honky-tonk homes from homeless sailors, past the quiet retreat of Golden Gate Park
and along closed undwelled-in-looking dwellings of the Sunset District.
Point of View? _________________________________
Circle one: Fact or Opinion? – Golden Gate park is a quiet retreat.
8. From The Olympic Games by Theodore Knight
While still a teenager, Lee met and began to train with some of the best divers in the country, among them
several former Olympians. One former champion – Farid Simaika the Egyptian 1928 silver medalist who had
moved to this country—gave Lee a piece of advice that he took to heart. He told the young diver that he
might encounter prejudice in competition because he was of Korean descent. Simaika told Lee he would
simply have to work twice as hard as other athletes. “You’ve go to be so much better that they have to give
you the medal,” Simaika said.
Point of View? _________________________________
Circle one: Fact or Opinion? - “Lee met and began to train with . . . several former Olympians.”
9. From “Through the Tunnel” by Doris Lessing
He was an only child, eleven years old. She was a widow. She was determined to be neither
possessive nor lacking in devotion. She went worrying off to her beach.
As for Jerry, once he saw that his mother had gained her beach, he began the steep descent to the
bay. From where he was, high up among red-brown rocks, it was a scoop of moving bluish green fringed with
white. As he went lower, he saw that it spread among small promontories and inlets of rough, sharp rock, and
the crisping, lapping surface showed stains of purple and darker blue.
Point of View? _________________________________
Circle one: Fact or Opinion? – “He was an only child, eleven years old. She was a widow.”
10. From “Pictures on a Rock” by Brent Ashabranner
One spring day a few years before the Rough Rock Demonstration School was opened, a five-yearold Navajo boy named Fred Bia was watching the family sheep flock in the arid countryside near the little
town. It was his daily chore to follow the sheep as they drifted over the red, rocky earth in their endless
search for grass and leaves of semi-desert plants.
Point of View? _________________________________
Circle one: Fact or Opinion? – ”It was his daily chore to follow the sheep . . .”